A STRONGER ARM OF THE LAW

WHEN policemen arrived to arrest suspected drugpusher Rigor Abala in
Barangay Pasil, Cebu City recently, more than a hundred neighbors blocked
their way.

The police succeeded in arresting Abala only after the arrival of
reinforcements from the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team which
effectively cordoned off the mob.

This is not the first time that a suspected drugpusher was protected by his
neighbors by way of a perverted form of people power in this urban poor
barangay.

And this is not the only urban poor barangay in the Philippines where
suspected criminal elements have been protected by the neighborhood against
the police. Scenes like these have taken place in many depressed barangays
in Metro Manila, and in many other urban centers in the country where
lawlessness seems to have become a prevalent way of life.

Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Joey Lina, in a
recent radio broadcast, said the barangay is in the forefront in the war
against crime and drug addiction.

Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Hermogenes P. Ebdane Jr.
has even gone a step further by identifying the neighborhood itself as the
frontline.

Indeed, it is in the neighborhoods and the barangays that the foundations of
the strong republic that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo envisions need to
be built.

And it is in this sense, that the newly elected barangay and youth officials
of the land are doubly challenged to take a much greater responsibility in
the task of building the strong republic.

For lawlessness or any form of crime or vice can only prevail or thrive in a
neighborhood or barangay, if the leaders of the community are either
sleeping on their job or allowing these things to happen.

I once asked a barangay captain why illegal drug trade has been rampant in
his barangay. Without batting an eyelash, he told me that there was nothing
he can do about it because of superior force.

The sad fact is that it may have also become true that criminals have become
the superior force in some of our communities. Well, there is a southern
Philippine city that is already politically controlled by a criminal
syndicate.

It is in these circumstances where the political will of the national
leadership is tested. When community leaders are already overwhelmed by
criminals, it is where the full force of the national government agencies
should also be applied.

Lawlessness is creeping in our land largely because of drug addiction and
other forms of crime. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is right in calling
for a stronger arm of the law.